Writing a novel (or a story, for that matter) is confusing work. There are just so many characters running all over the place, dropping hints and having revelations. So it’s no surprise that many authors plan out their works beforehand, in chart or list or scribble form, in order to keep everything straight. Click through for collection of those planning papers, which offer a peek into the process of some of your favorite authors, from James Salter to J.K.… Read More
Joseph Heller
The Fascinating Stories Behind Classic Book Titles
A book title can make a big difference. After all, as much as our mothers warned us against it, as humans we can never seem to help ourselves from judging books by their covers. And some book titles — whether we’ve read the attendant books or not — are just burned into our brains, ushered in by the collective consciousness. But how did they come to be? After the jump, a few of the fascinating stories behind the titles of classic books, sprung from poems, paintings, and saloon bathroom stalls. Hey, inspiration can come from anywhere. … Read More
15 Scathing Early Reviews of Classic Novels
There are some literary classics that are near unimpeachable. We’re thinking Lolita, Ulysses, The Great Gatsby: the best of the best. Except that they’re decidedly not unimpeachable — or at least they weren’t when they first hit bookshelves. These books and many others that are now considered masterpieces got their fair share of scathing reviews when they first came out, and in reputable publications no less. Sure, hindsight is 20/20, but we can’t help having this to say to these brutal reviewers: ha, ha. Click through to read 15 harshly negative early reviews of classic novels, and feel free to register your outrage (or your agreement) in the comments. … Read More
Joshua Landsman’s Sketchbook Odes to His Favorite Authors
We’ve all felt moved to scribble by our favorite writers or books from time to time — or at least, we know we have. But Joshua Landsman’s “Writers I Have Loved” project, which we spotted over at Imprint, takes that impulse and runs with it. Landsman keeps a gorgeous notebook filled with excellent drawings, musings and quotations from some of his favorite authors, from Samuel Beckett to Flaubert. But it’s not only gushing adulations and loving portraiture — Landsman also puts to paper the books that drove him to defenestration, and steps back far enough to consider the Google search results for William Gaddis. All in all, we think it’s a wonderful ode to the reading life, and we can’t help but feel inspired (again) to start up a little notebook of our own. But for now, click through to see some of our favorite pages from Landsman’s project, and then head here to see even more of his work. … Read More
Classic Novels and the Filmmakers Who Were Born to Direct Them
This week, we found out that Guy Ritchie is on board to helm a Warner Brothers adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s literary classic Treasure Island, a pairing that — given Ritchie’s gift for madcap, stylized adventure movies — we think is going to be pretty awesome. Inspired by this news, and given that we’re rather unsatisfied with many of the cinematic adaptations of classic novels that actually exist, we’ve come up with a dream list of some of our favorite classic novels and the filmmakers we think would be perfect to direct them. Click through to check out our list of book-director pairings that were totally meant to be, and let us know who you think should direct your own favorite classic novel in the comments. … Read More
The Most Cryptic Titles in Literature (And What They Mean)
This week, Laurent Binet’s HHhH, which we can safely say is blessed with one of the strangest titles we’ve ever encountered, hit shelves. Inspired by the sheer weirdness of the title (we’ll explain what it means later), we’ve compiled a list of some of the most cryptic book titles in literature, from the confusingly short to the numerically based to the grammatically incomprehensible. We’ve left out children’s books, of course — as we’re sure you’re aware, the nonsense words and silly symbols gracing their covers just are too many to count. Click through to check out our list, and if we’ve missed your own favorite cryptic title, let us know in the comments. … Read More
Read Evelyn Waugh’s Nasty Response to ‘Catch 22′
When a young publicist at Simon & Schuster sent Evelyn Waugh a copy of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 back in 1961, his response was a lot less enthusiastic than what she was hoping for. Among the zingers in his scathing response to one the greatest literary works of the 20th century: “I am sorry that the… Read More
War Games: 10 Books About How Men Are Made and Destroyed
On this day in 1953, an armistice between the US, China, and the two Koreas officially ends the Korean War. Since we’re still stuck in a protracted conflict in the Middle East and South Asia, we figured it was as good a time as any to discuss the books in the past century that spoke frankly about the horrors of war on the battlefield and in the air. After WWI, novels about wars became best sellers, as veterans became writers and began to attempt to make sense of what happened through the written word. Though we’re now in the era of spy thrillers and identity theft cases, it’s important to look back at the novels and memoirs that moved generations to rethink their past assumptions about war and conflict at home and abroad. When will we receive the books from the veterans in Iraq and Afghanistan? And what were the war books that influenced you, readers? … Read More
A Revolution in the Mind: How to Protest War by Reading Books
Yesterday Linda Yuknavitch wrote a powerful, softhearted essay about the revolutionary act of reading in The Rumpus. Instead of succumbing to the dystopian reality of the 24-hour news cycle, she devours political books, writing, “There was only one thing I managed to ‘do’ that I think made a radical difference – not in stopping anything terrible that was happening, but in my own consciousness. I read books.” This is not to say she rejects taking to the streets and protesting, but that books can make an incredible impact on a mind willing to be transformed. She continues, “I spent hours in the University of Oregon library. I stole several books. I was so into reading them I wanted to bite them. Eat them. They made my brain hurt in the best possible way.” … Read More
RIP, Our Favorite Secondary Characters in Literature
We all grieve when the protagonist of a novel dies, but how about when we mourn over characters who aren’t as prominent? They might be the friends, mentors, peers, and family members who share the spotlight at times but who either peripheral to the main action or because of other circumstances drift apart from the storyline at some point along the way, due to their untimely ends. From the unexpected deaths to the horribly slow ones, we offer you ten secondary characters who passed too soon but who will not be forgotten. … Read More
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